


Days Gone By

by ReceiverofWisdom



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/F, Tumblr Prompt, Zombies, guess this counts as major character death, mai and zuko are sort of in this in a way, the walking dead - Freeform, tyzula - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3286490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReceiverofWisdom/pseuds/ReceiverofWisdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous Prompt: Tyzula Walking Dead AU. With Ty Lee as Andrea and Azula as Michonne.<br/>Might do a sequel to it, depends on feedback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days Gone By

They were but a hum beyond the stale and surprisingly in-tact windows of the malodorous building.  
  
She was exhausted, to say the least. Her limbs weighed her every movement. Perhaps not as thoroughly as the look earned from her temporary companion each time she would catch her eye, however.  
  
The stretched silence between them was unnerving, unbearable, and Ty Lee yearned to reach beyond the unspoken barrier that stood bold, deterring any motivation of questioning, or comfort, or the fluid ease of idle comments that would keep the horror beyond bolted doors at bay until the sun would rise and they would be on the move once more.  
  
To where, she was not sure.  
  
Azula moved with defined purpose. At once, also with aimless measure. It had become policy to keep moving. Never in the same place for more than two days, and even so, past the span of twenty-hour hours was pushing it for as well as they could mark those hours.  
  
It did not matter if Ty Lee slowed their pace with her inept condition of illness, or if the streets were so compact it took them nearly half a day to simply make it across town in order to avoid gaining attention.  
  
Azula became masterful of traversing amongst the dead.  
  
The Youth who traveled at her side with daunting loyalty never yet faired a question towards the identity of the armless, jawless individuals that cloaked them into the lifeless society; the individuals who, despite her thorough time spent with the enigma of a woman, would never allow her a complete night’s rest.  
  
Perhaps the female who, despite wandering her days as a walking corpse yet had the most lovely skin and black hair, was once a friend, a sister, a co-worker. Perhaps the one with unkempt, shaken hair and a coarse-sided face was an old friend, a brother, a stranger met at the intersection whose life was, too, much of an enigma.  
  
Azula had many stories to tell when it suited her. None of which added up.  
  
But Ty Lee listened to them all, taking truth where she felt that truth fit, where it suited her sense of wonder about a world that was gradually lost beneath decay and death and the primal finesse of survival.  
  
They worked well together, over all.  
  
Azula directed, and Ty Lee performed where necessary.  
  
Her particular skills of physical combat, however, did not do much for the unfeeling bodies of the dead. Incapacitation was disappointingly brief, and hardly worth it for the energy necessary to perform the actions.  
  
She learned to work with a blade. She learned to aim and make her bullets count over the course of time. She learned that Azula liked to set unnecessary fires to things. She learned that Azula was a brilliant strategist.  
  
  
She learned that high vantage points were of necessity.  
  
When she proposed the highest vantage point that peeked over the array of buildings, purposed for a couple days to recuperate from the sickness that was dragging their time to shreds, however, she did not gain Azula’s lenient approval.  
  
“Nothing else could get up there.”  
  
Azula brushed her off. She marched the opposing direction, tugging the chains of her charge that stumbled mindlessly obedient behind her.  
  
“You could rest too. I think I got you sick.”  
  
She gained nothing more than a hostile glance, and an urged pace that her breathlessness almost seemed unable to compete with.  
  
“What’s your problem with it? This is the most secluded spot we’ve come up on, how do you think anything else could get up there? I think it would be really nice if we just –.” She _flinched_ as Azula whirled around on her.  
  
Charismatic, nearly pragmatic, yet Azula’s patience had quickly drained throughout their recent plights.  
  
Or perhaps the serrated edge had been nicked into formation before Ty Lee could have identified it. A slow, agonized spiral of hostility, mute points, and the increasing need to keep all decisions to a minimum – resulting in _her_ final word.  
  
“How do you suggest we _get back down_ , Ty? What if we attract attention in the process and they crowd around its base for days onward? It would be _stupid_ to die stranded in a tower when we have gotten this far.”  
  
“At least they couldn’t use the elevator.”  
  
The attempted jab at humour could have very well been her final set of words.  
  
If a stare could set a blaze, Ty Lee would have wholly combusted where she stood, smoldered into ashes, only burdening the weight of the wind that would carry her away from the attentions of the fierce woman who, at the grace of undead moping around the corner, chose to bite down on the soul-shriveling phrases that were likely occupying her immediate frame of mind, urging to be dribbled like venom past her lips.  
  
The suggestion became forfeit when Azula spared her, and faced forward once more, her presence ignored by the approaching Walkers who meandered ignorantly past them as Ty Lee loosened her tense pose and began moping about beside the two captured undead being led by dog leashes from a pet store they had stumbled across perhaps a week beforehand.  
  
Azula was right. They were thriving as they were. To take risk at that point was unnecessary.  
  
She kept directing an inappropriately wistful gaze back towards the massive tower that surely did not go missed by the one who blazed their path.  
  
In the depths of the night, they occupied a shed outside of a house so heavily boarded that prying their way inside would draw too much attention to benefit a single night’s stay. The undead duo _stood guard_ beyond the doors of the diminutive shed.  
  
Ty Lee sat with her back to the wall, opposite of the other female, who utilized the advantage of the fact that the shed had a small hole outlet at its top, to build them a small and humble fire.  
  
Ty Lee had lost her appetite and her ability to find comfort in warmth. She was _too_ hot, yet Azula became persistent that she continue to stay warm and bundled. Recovery would allow them to pick up on the absent time of their journey.  
  
The absent time for what or where, she could still not be sure of.  
  
What schedule could aimless wanderings possibly maintain? Would staying more than a couple stretched days in a single location truly hamper what they built?  
  
Azula said it would make them soft, give them a reason to misguide their guard, call upon unnecessary attention.  
  
Yet with each passing day, Ty Lee felt weaker, struggled more despite the urgings of her significant companion.  
  
She was tired. She began dozing, nodding off to the side, only to be startled awake as empty air caught her. Sitting upright was difficult. Azula was trying to explain something to her. She caught less than half of the precious words offered. Her softer-than-usual tone of voice appealed to her more than the utterances that were meant to be heard _and_ comprehended.  
  
The empty air beside her became weighted with a heated body. She marveled at how delirious she was, not having realized that Azula crossed the expanse of the room just to sit beside her. She marveled at how Azula sat down beside her, complacently allowing Ty Lee to lean against her. She was also wise to fully embrace the fact, and not comment about it.  
\---  
She blinks, and it is morning. The light filters through cracks she had not recognized the night before. The fire is long since dead, and Azula is missing. This is nothing new to her.  
  
She waits for her return, piling what they have into an old military duffel and their two backpacks. The patches are wearing off, and she makes a note to scour for something better to re-attach them with later on. Their supplies have yet to fall out solely do to any particular hole.  
  
 Her body quickly begins to betray her, expelling any morning energy she had hoped to hold onto until the next eventual stop.  
  
When Azula returns, she is laying curled up beneath the military duffel and her own backpack.  
  
It takes a heavy portion of Azula’s will not to nudge the other over with her boot. Instead, she shoulders the duffel and both of the backpacks, and Ty Lee takes it as a definite hint that she should be settling into the weary process of getting up or something _will_ happen to address her floor position.  
  
Azula does not rush her, and the uncharacteristic leniency that she is shown causes Ty Lee to bubble into panic with discretion.  
  
She pushes past the unease in her stomach and follows the other woman, who spares a moment to unravel the chains of the undead charge from a pole near the shed door, and they are back out on the streets. Her nausea causes the world around her to spin.  
  
Azula stops periodically to allow her to catch up. Straying too far would grant Ty Lee the attention of the few Walkers scuffling about them. She says nothing through this, and the former Acrobat cannot help but realize they are retracing their path from yesterday.  
  
The elongated, thin building with the spaceship-like construct at its peak grows in her view. A peculiar excitement boils in her chest, and gives her the measure of energy necessary to prance her way to Azula’s side, as face-paced as she is. Her hopeful peer goes entirely ignored by the commandeering woman, who boldly maintains a straight stare to the objective ahead, past the hazed eyes of leering dead.  
  
Ty Lee knows better than to press her luck when Azula gives in to any matter she had once, albeit temporarily, put her foot down about.  
  
When they reach the base of the tower, despite how foolish it seems, Ty Lee pokes the button of the elevator.  
  
Expectedly, it does not move, and Azula shakes her head.  
  
“We’ll have to climb this. You wouldn’t make it with how you are now.” She speaks hushed. The dead listen.  
  
Ty Lee wrings at her braid slightly, studying the structure and its ladder-like formation, clear to the base of the top. It is a long and hazardous climb. She begins to seriously re-evaluate her sight-seeing desires. _I’m more physically capable than you are_ becomes her traitorous thought that she dare not vocalize. Her eyes betray to doubtfulness, and Azula brings herself to scowl.  
  
Ty Lee wonders if Azula brought her there purely to prove a point about unnecessary efforts.  
  
If Azula viewed it as a necessity, or something that _she_ desired, they would have already been halfway up, scaling the tower. Azula was ruthless in completing the objectives that she approved. She was not admitting defeat to the structure; she simply did not find it worth their time, and had, at that point, made it quite clear.  
  
Ty Lee’s stomach collapses in on itself. Her sickness is taking its toll. She wheels away from the other with an adamant argument at her tongue, and tries to push herself in behind a few bars to conceal her heaving from the Biters beyond them, who remain in a continually fortunate bliss to their presence.  
  
Azula only seems cemented, then, in the idea against climbing.  
  
She presses her back to the fried electricity box, crossing her arms, and waiting for Ty Lee to finish while maintaining vigilance.  
  
When she looks over at the brunette, she is met with pitifully teary eyes.  
  
“ _Stop_ that,” she snaps, and the Acrobat wipes at her face.  
  
Her throat is raw, and she musters no retort  as Azula reaches to lock a hand firmly against hers, tugging her off away from the mountainous structure.  
  
“We will hold up somewhere else for a few days. If you get better, we will _see_ about more frivolous trips. Travelling around and exerting yourself isn’t getting you better, nor will climbing the side of a tourist attraction like the ape you are.”  
  
Ty Lee could have told her that days ago, and probably put it a better way, if the other had listened to her willfulness to stop and rest and recover.  
  
Despite being turned away from such a – in her opinion – gloriously safe location, she mopes behind the commandeering woman, purely pleased to be promised days of ease.


End file.
